#service worker

[fightthereality]

Hey I don’t know who doesn’t know this yet but in my experience it’s a LOT of folks so here we go

Hey all! If at the end of a business interaction in which you are the consumer (checking out at the Home Depot, resolving an issue with customer support, etc), you are asked to take a survey to rate your experience

Please, please just do it if you can.

Not only that, but if you are satisfied with your consumer experience

Please

Go ahead and give the highest rating

“But why should I go out of my way to do a corporations research for them for free?”

I hear you asking, because I’m a magical fae creature (queer punk).

Well I’ll

Fucking

Tell you

Yes, obviously, these surveys are just a ploy to get consumer data without conducting actual paid research.

However.

Because of already high turnover rates, a bunch of these corporations use these metrics to measure how well they treat their floor employees.

In other words, these surveys are not only used for wringing out as much money from you as possible— they’re also used as an excuse to keep employees in a state of never being able to meet expectation.

Let me explain.

In [redacted company name that rhymes with Amiibo] we are…well, not so much <I>encouraged</I> as outright told to get as many people to take these surveys as possible. We have a goal metric to meet for percentages, and that metric raises every goddamn year. Right now it’s at 90%.

The ONLY kind of review that contributes to a rise in percentage is a five star review.

The ONLY way for employees to meet the BASELINE expectations is to have a perfect score on these reviews. And the only way to be recognized for it is to be mentioned by name in that survey.

Which means we have to not only push these surveys but ensure that consumers know to rate five stars

Because anything under five stars is seen by the boss as a negative experience

Of course, this metric standard is not at ALL made clear to the people taking the survey, so we’ll meaning people often put in 4 stars and a lovely comment, because that’s now star ratings are SUPPOSED TO FUCKING WORK

but instead, the company sees that as “well these guys aren’t doing enough”

I’ve seen entire departments have their staffing GUTTED after not meeting these metrics for long enough.

They’re used as an excuse not to pay employees more, and can be used as an excuse to terminate someone making waves

So next time you get a chance to survey your minimum wage cashier or garden associate

Please take the time to do so if you can, and just absolutely wreck their metrics with love pleaseandthankyou

[the-lex-exe]

silently and peacefully awaiting my death as i get into work… Getting prodded into the hellish flames of service work … and i have to train someone today. i think that’s a double whammy. it’s even Funnier when you realize training people was Not in my job description….. sigh….

[homedepot12ftskeleton]

My resolution for 2025 is to be less chronically offline because I’ve begun to feel like a boomer.

Idk what the youths are talking about these days, but apparently there was this controversy a while back about wether or not cashiers should say hello?? As a cashier, I enjoy the little small talk I make with customers. Small bouts of real human connection feel like a relief after staring at a tablet for hours. And on the days I don’t feel like talking to people? I just say hi. They say hi back and 98% of the time that’s the end of the interaction, but at least I have acknowledged them as people. Maybe for some people that’s too much, but a one word greeting doesn’t feel like too much emotional labor for someone who’s job it is to talk to people.

I’m beginning to fear that the internet has convinced a generation that they can disregard every random human being they meet and still live in a functioning society. It’s not just cashiers, YOU should also be polite to strangers and acknowledge them as human beings. Complement your coworker’s outfit, ask your professors for book recommendations, engage with your community. Otherwise we’ll all end up alone.

TLDR: y’all should join me offline

[angelstalkshit]

yes tf i am

[a-world-where-cocoa-is-purple]

working on service is acting like spongebob, but actually being squidward on the inside

[maxx420]

me accidentally unmasking st Starbucks because people be TESTING MY FUCKING PATIENCE TODAY

[reasonsforhope]

Federal regulators on Tuesday [April 23, 2024] enacted a nationwide ban on new noncompete agreements, which keep millions of Americans — from minimum-wage earners to CEOs — from switching jobs within their industries.

The Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday afternoon voted 3-to-2 to approve the new rule, which will ban noncompetes for all workers when the regulations take effect in 120 days [So, the ban starts in early September, 2024!]. For senior executives, existing noncompetes can remain in force. For all other employees, existing noncompetes are not enforceable.

[That's right: if you're currently under a noncompete agreement, it's completely invalid as of September 2024! You're free!!]

The antitrust and consumer protection agency heard from thousands of people who said they had been harmed by noncompetes, illustrating how the agreements are "robbing people of their economic liberty," FTC Chair Lina Khan said. 

The FTC commissioners voted along party lines, with its two Republicans arguing the agency lacked the jurisdiction to enact the rule and that such moves should be made in Congress...

Why it matters

The new rule could impact tens of millions of workers, said Heidi Shierholz, a labor economist and president of the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank. 

"For nonunion workers, the only leverage they have is their ability to quit their job," Shierholz told CBS MoneyWatch. "Noncompetes don't just stop you from taking a job — they stop you from starting your own business."

Since proposing the new rule, the FTC has received more than 26,000 public comments on the regulations. The final rule adopted "would generally prevent most employers from using noncompete clauses," the FTC said in a statement.

The agency's action comes more than two years after President Biden directed the agency to "curtail the unfair use" of noncompetes, under which employees effectively sign away future work opportunities in their industry as a condition of keeping their current job. The president's executive order urged the FTC to target such labor restrictions and others that improperly constrain employees from seeking work.

"The freedom to change jobs is core to economic liberty and to a competitive, thriving economy," Khan said in a statement making the case for axing noncompetes. "Noncompetes block workers from freely switching jobs, depriving them of higher wages and better working conditions, and depriving businesses of a talent pool that they need to build and expand."

Real-life consequences

In laying out its rationale for banishing noncompetes from the labor landscape, the FTC offered real-life examples of how the agreements can hurt workers.

In one case, a single father earned about $11 an hour as a security guard for a Florida firm, but resigned a few weeks after taking the job when his child care fell through. Months later, he took a job as a security guard at a bank, making nearly $15 an hour. But the bank terminated his employment after receiving a letter from the man's prior employer stating he had signed a two-year noncompete.

In another example, a factory manager at a textile company saw his paycheck dry up after the 2008 financial crisis. A rival textile company offered him a better job and a big raise, but his noncompete blocked him from taking it, according to the FTC. A subsequent legal battle took three years, wiping out his savings. 

-via CBS Moneywatch, April 24, 2024

--

Note:

A lot of people think that noncompete agreements are only a white-collar issue, but they absolutely affect blue-collar workers too, as you can see from the security guard anecdote.

In fact, one in six food and service workers are bound by noncompete agreements. That's right - one in six food workers can't leave Burger King to work for Wendy's [hypothetical example], in the name of "trade secrets." (x, x, x)

Noncompete agreements also restrict workers in industries from tech and video games to neighborhood yoga studios. "The White House estimates that tens of millions of workers are subject to noncompete agreements, even in states like California where they're banned." (x, x, x)

The FTC estimates that the ban will lead to "the creation of 8,500 new businesses annually, an average annual pay increase of $524 for workers, lower health care costs, and as many as 29,000 more patents each year for the next decade." (x)

Clearer explanation of noncompete agreements below the cut.

Noncompete agreements can restrict workers from leaving for a better job or starting their own business.

Noncompetes often effectively coerce workers into staying in jobs they want to leave, and even force them to leave a profession or relocate.

Noncompetes can prevent workers from accepting higher-paying jobs, and even curtail the pay of workers not subject to them directly.

Of the more than 26,000 comments received by the FTC, more than 25,000 supported banning noncompetes. 

[mariflexion]

disbarment era phoenix gets a fast food job

[incognitopolls]

We ask your questions so you don’t have to! Submit your questions to have them posted anonymously as polls.

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

there's just... there is no reason to make yet another cop show in this day and age. copaganda is not only bullshit, it is a failure of imagination.

you want to watch brooding characters with dark pasts investigate crimes in an official capacity? just use private detectives (cops have a miserable solve rate anyway). want eccentric geniuses & their sidekicks solving mysteries? i present you with armchair detectives & neighborhood busybodies. oh, you're craving a workplace comedy-drama starring overworked protagonists doing their heartfelt best to resolve community conflicts? social worker office sitcom! bitch this is ACHIEVABLE

[familyabolisher]

I do think being a waitress has done one great thing with respect to writing: it has made me understand deeply and fundamentally how many writers are full of shit. It has altered my view of privilege and money and the ways that people complain that mask the fact that in their world, they would never have to do a job that equates to basic manual labor, because their intelligence is worth more than waiting on others. (Side note: Sweetbitter was an overrated waitressing book, Love Me Back is underrated.)

Maybe by accident, maybe on purpose, I fell in to a social group in New York City with many people who consider themselves to be intellectuals. I’ve been privy to countless conversations about how intellectual labor is labor, about how someone needs to do the sitting around and thinking and theorizing, with the thought underlying this being: and it certainly wouldn’t be the people who carry things for a living.

Why don’t websites hire service people to write about food? How do ‘restaurant journalists’ exist, when servers who are also artists are standing right here? A book critic once told me, “a website could never be staffed by service people, the quality of the writing would be too low,” and I wanted to laugh. I suspect it’s easier to teach a waitress to be a writer than an intellectual to be a waiter.

Becca Schuh, Bad Waitress

[iww-gnv]

California fast-food workers are forming a unique kind of union

Lizzet Aguilar has worked at a McDonald’s in Los Angeles for 17 years. She’s never once been given a paid day off. She’s never taken a vacation. When her husband or nine-year-old son get sick and need her to care for them—or if she gets sick herself—she has to call out and lose a day’s pay. “Es difícil,” she says: It’s difficult. Her wages are already low. She makes $16.78 per hour. “Estamos luchando día a día. Es difícil vivir en California,” says Aguilar: We live day to day. It’s difficult to live in California. But for many years she was afraid to speak up and join the Fight for 15, a national movement to raise the minimum wage that started with fast-food workers and has since seen 14 states and Washington, D.C., raise their minimum wages to $15 an hour, increasing pay for 26 million workers.   Then the pandemic hit and Aguilar’s boss didn’t give workers any hand sanitizer, gloves, or even masks. Six coworkers got COVID-19. “Ese me puso a decir, ‘Basta,’” she recalls: It pushed her to say, Enough. She got involved to protect herself and her family.  Now Aguilar will be part of the next evolution in the Fight for 15 movement: She and her coworkers will announce on February 9 that they are forming the California Fast Food Workers Union, which will be part of SEIU. Hundreds of workers from different fast-food companies will gather in Los Angeles to sign union cards. It’s time, Aguilar and her coworkers decided, to become more formal members of a union and pay dues. It’s a fresh start, she says, on the road toward securing bigger gains.

Read the rest here.

[marisatomay]

i think that after covid (i know it’s not over don’t be a pedant here you know what i mean) we all should have been required to take mandatory social etiquette classes before we were allowed back into society like a driver’s license test but for things like “hold a door for people behind you so it doesn’t slam in their face” and “don’t be a prick to service workers” and “get off your fucking phone if you’re watching a movie in a theater”

[milkcioccolato]

Poor feral baby Shin has never used a public transport in her entire life, she doesn’t know how they work

[moodyvoid]

Twice panics when he can’t find the rest of the league at the grocery store.

Cue someone speaking over the intercom: “Attention: to the League of Villains, your lost fully-grown-man is waiting for you at customer service.”

[hermitshell]

what if pearl worked at a grocery store